Henry Ingersoll Bowditch

Henry Ingersoll Bowditch (1808-1892) was an American physician and a prominent Christian abolitionist. Bowditch was born on Aug. 9, 1808, in Salem, Mass to Nathaniel Bowditch, a renowned mathematician. He graduated from Harvard College in 1828, earned his medical degree there in 1832, and afterwards studied medicine in Paris for 2 years with leading physicians of the day. From 1859 to 1867 Bowditch was Jackson professor of clinical medicine at Harvard; he later founded the Massachusetts State Board of Health. Bowditch was a fellow of the American Academy of Public Health and wrote a seminal textbook on the subject; [1] Public hygiene in America

While in England in 1833, Bowditch observed the funeral of William Wilberforce, "a great and constant advocate for the abolition of slavery" (Bowditch, 55). Shortly after returning to Boston from Europe, Bowditch observed the attempted lynching of William Lloyd Garrison and declared himself an abolitionist. Bowditch thereafter received the customary ostracism of society and close friends who “would even stare and scowl without speaking when we met after I had openly declared myself as one of the hated Abolitionists” (Bowditch 101). Bowditch's medical practice also lost business as a consequence of his abolitionism; however Bowditch remained in the movement.

Bowditch was an active, passionate abolitionist. He gave lectures and kept company with abolitionist leaders such as Charles Sumner, Charles C. Emerson, and Fredrick Douglass. After briefly participating in Warren Street Chapel, a charity for impoverished children, Bowditch left the institution because of his conviction that their policy of exclusively serving white children was incompatible with his principles. Bowditch resented such culture-driven racist religious institutions, and proclaimed that his "soul arose indignant...to the whole race of priestly sycophants" who refused to combat racism and slavery (115).

He also took action in association with the fugitive slave cause. Bowditch became a founding member of the Latimer Committee and an editor of The Latimer Journal. Each was created in response to the plight of George Latimer, an apprehended fugitive slave in danger of deportation back South. Bowditch's efforts led to a massive petitioning of the Massachusetts General Court (legislature) that resulted in legislation forbidding the use of state and municipal jails from detaining fugitive slaves, a blow to slave-hunters. However, Bowditch was also a witness to a vast number of unjust fugitive deportations.

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